In a post-game interview at the US Chess Championship 2024, Fabiano Caruana spoke with Anastasia Karlovich about his feelings at the event that he had won three times, how it feels to play against his Olympiad teammates, who from the players in the field have a Winner’s mentality.
Fabiano explained that the fact that he won US Chess Championship for three times doesn’t change anything in the approach to the tournament: “After wining the event last year, I think I have even more motivation to do well this year as well. After I won the US Chess Championship for the first time in 2016, it was even my first time playing, for many years I didn’t have another chance to win. Or I had some chances, but I was spoiling them, and I was watching other players constantly winning the tournament. So it feels good in the last few years that I came back to my senses in this tournament.“.
Caruana also said that it’s difficult to play against his Olympiad fellows, considering the fact that just a month ago they were sharing chess ideas preparing for the games at the Chess Olympiad 2024. “We were sharing a lot of ideas, and I shared many ideas that I have with the players during the team meetings and also privately. Sometimes I was giving some advice or some ideas of what to play. And of course, I think it’s very important at that time to be doing this as a team, but then afterwards, suddenly, your opponents have some more insight into your openings. But I don’t think it’s going to be a huge deal, we all know each other pretty well as players, but definitely going from sharing ideas and rooting for your team to having to fight against them and rooting against them is a difference“, noted Fabiano.
Being asked who has a Winner’s mentality from the players in the 2024 US Chess Championship field, Fabi emphasized Levon Aronian and Hans Niemann: “I think from the players at the tournament, the strongest at his peak is Levon, by a clear margin. There was a period of time when he was considered more or less, second first equal in the world along with Magnus, so it was very close between them. This was maybe in 2013, 2012. So at his (Levon Aronian’s) peak you can’t say that he is lacking any winner’s mentality for sure. And also these days, even though he is not at his best years, still he is enormously strong, so I think he is one of the favourites to win the tournament. In terms of winner’s mentality I think also Hans is a player that you can mention. He clearly wants to win very much and he is putting a lot of effort into his games. You can feel that for sure“.
